As I scroll down through my Facebook feed, I see an endless number of self-proclaimed gurus that are running marketing campaigns for businesses.

Here’s how it happens.

A “guru” says he is making a $10,000 a month running marketing campaigns on Facebook for other businesses.

Simple money right?

So he creates a course on how you can make money running marketing campaigns for businesses on Facebook. He flashes a few images of money he has collected in his bank account to get people to sign up.

Desperate people buy it, and we are off to the races.

The new “guru” who has just been educated by the old guru is now promising businesses that he will make them successful. He lands a couple of gullible business owners, and now he is off to the races.

Rinse and repeat.

It’s the perfect case of the blind leading the blind.

Who are the losers?

The business owners. Many of them are not educated enough to know what is fake and what is not. They will eventually figure it out after months of wasted time and money.

By than…

The “guru” has moved onto other companies.

Beware of “gurus” and beware of promises. Best to only pay these people based off of their performance. But don’t go blindly and mindlessly into business with them.

Marketing takes time, money, and expertise. There’s no simple solution. It’s hard work to beat out your competition and wrestle with social media and search engine platforms.

It’s a battle out there. You can’t have tinker bell at the head of your army when you’re fighting against Maximus or William Wallace.

Now onto some good stuff.

I’ve been reading “Scientific Advertising” for the third time. It’s one of the best advertising books out there because Claude Hopkins was one of the best Ad Men.

He understood that Advertising is about profits. He said, “Men are in business for profit, not to exploit their ideas. And their ideas vanish just the moment that profit fails to show.”

Profits come by speaking to the consumer and getting in their heads. We are continually fighting this concept with both Marketing Hy and Ydraw.

Your audience will listen if you talk service to them. Speak to their needs and their wants. Consumers will turn their backs when you seek to impress an advantage for yourself. If you take a look at your website and it is all about you, change it up a bit and change your ads.

Most advertising dollars are blown by companies creating selfish ads.

“That’s another big point to consider. Argue anything for your own advantage, and people will resist to the limit. But seem unselfishly to consider your customers’ desires, and they will naturally flock to you.”

Marketing does not need to be complicated, keep it simple and your marketing message will be clear.

Your marking campaign doesn’t need to be over complicated, keep it simple and your marketing message will be clear.

Marketing to Solve their Problem

First off, you have a product or service and that product or service solves a problem.

If you’re a property manager, the problem you’re solving is people don’t want to manage their own properties, it’s complicated, it’s a pain in the butt, and so tell people that. And you don’t need to over complicate it.

You don’t need to come up with some amazing slogan or anything that tries to sound pretty. The idea behind marketing is tell people how it is, tell the problem you solve, and then create a clear message.

Share Your Marketing Message

Share your message on social media, video, on your website, on brochures, whatever you want to do.

You’re just gonna take that clear, simple message and you’re just gonna put it out there.

And then at the end, you are gonna invite people.

Give Them a Call to Action

I’m always surprised by these companies that build these amazing videos. They go out there and they’ll spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and the video doesn’t even invite people to do things.

So you want a clear call to action and invite them to change, invite them to buy, invite them to try, and that’s it.

Marketing Mistakes – What Not To Do:

Complicate Your Marketing Message

What most people do is they complicate things.

First, they confuse the heck out of their audience because they don’t create a simple message.

They want to talk about all the features of their product. How it does this, how it does that, how it solves, how it’s this color, and they forget at the end of the day they’re there to solve their customer’s problem and they don’t ever speak to the customer or mention their problem.

Confuse Your Ad with Features

Companies are just doing too much. They are using too many words and also using too many marketing strategies.

So you’ll go to a lot of websites and you have no idea what they do because they’re sharing so many different messages and what you want to do is stick to one message.

Another thing they do is have too many websites, too many funnels, just too many platforms. They over complicate things and they can’t figure out the one thing that’s gonna get them customers.

They’ll run display ads, video ads, Instagram ads, and it’s not bad to do all this stuff, it’s just what you need to do is find one avenue that’s gonna produce you income and then turn around and expand out from there.

Most importantly where most companies go wrong, is they like to do everything all at once. It just gets too complicated and at the end of the day they are not getting the results they want.

This week make it a goal to simplify your marketing.

Keep it simple.

I promise you if you keep it simple you’re gonna see great results without confusing your audience.

If you have questions, always reach out to us.

You can find us marketinghy.com, or you can go to our other company, sister company, ydraw.com if you’re looking for a video.

Writing consistently is not easy. It takes time, effort and a consistent drive to get better. I’ve always struggled with writing, but I make myself do it. I expect my clients to create content, so I better.

I like to practice what I preach.

Very rarely will a business admit that their marketing is not producing. The same goes for agencies. All of us, including you and me, have a slightly shrewd idea of ourselves. We often try to convince others and ourselves that we are something we are not, or that we are “doing” something we are not.

Therefore, my reader, the truth shall set you free.

Burn this message into your mind. Be very skeptical of what people and agencies tell you. Be very skeptical of surveys, rewards, questionnaires, and reviews. Instead, believe in what you see and in the results.

For example, if a marketing guru tells you they do marketing, what should you do?

Do they keep a pulse on the industry? Do you have an excellent clean website? Do they rank for SEO?

And the big kicker.

How do they themselves get customers? Did they cold call you to sell you on online marketing? There’s a bit of a disconnect there! If an online marketing company can not produce leads from their own online marketing campaign, what makes you think they can do it for you?

So let’s talk headlines!

“The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you can interest.” Scientific Advertising

We are all in a hurry, and the headline is the piece to slow us down. Not just one headline, many headlines are required.

Ad platforms allow us to test different variations of our headlines, but we aren’t using them the way we should.

We aren’t doing near enough testing with our headlines.

Let’s start with a simple headline…

“How to grow your business.”

This is ok, but it needs to be customized a bit.

“How A Chiropractor Can Grow His Business.”

What if we took this a bit further?

“How a Salt Lake City Chiropractor Can Grow His Business.”

Even better…

“How a Salt Lake City Chiropractor Can Grow His Practice in 30 days or less, guaranteed.”

Customization works a lot better. If you are a Chiropractor in Salt Lake City looking to grow your practice you will click on the ad. Ad platforms allow you to test different headlines and target in on the exact audience. Use them!

Start with the first headline and keep working on different types of headlines until it’s customized.

Ideas breed other ideas so keep working at it.

Customization is so cheap, and most other guys fail to use it. It’s a great way to lick competitions.

Give Them a Solution

Create the Solution

Avoid confusing your audience by talking only about your business, your product or service, talk about them. Their problem, and how you are going to be the guide to their solution.

Example, if somebody comes to you and says, “Hey I’m a first time home buyer,” I’m just using mortgage for an example, “I’m a first time home buyer.” Okay, what is their problem? They might have issues with their credit score, they might, can’t find a home, they can’t afford a home, well if you can create content that answers that and says, okay here, as a first time home buyer, here is how you can fix your credit score. Here is how you can find an affordable home. That’s the kind of content you need to be producing.

Once your content is created, you need to put a call to action:

Direct them to a link or a phone number

Collect their information such as an email address (a way for them to get more access to your content)

Give them something for free

Don’t forget, you’re creating this content for a reason and that’s to grow your business and get more customers.

In conculsion, you want to understand your target audience, what they like, what they don’t like, their problems. Understand their internal problem, what is it that they’re facing? Take that knowledge to show them how they can use your content to solve their problem. It’s that simple.